Welcome back, Lookingglass Theatre!
The distinguished Chicago company, taking risks on original work for a whopping 35 years, had not produced a new show in three years prior to Sunday night’s opening of “Villette,” a new adaptation by Sara Gmitter of the novel by Charlotte Bronte. Whatever the issues with this particular show, and I’ll get to those, it’s inestimably cheering to see the city-owned space at the Water Tower Water Works alive again with fresh creativity.
I’ve written for years about how fortunate Lookingglass was to be given this space right in the heart of the Magnificent Mile. But I’d say the tables now have turned: Struggling Michigan Avenue needs Lookingglass now just as much as Lookingglass once needed Michigan Avenue. This theater company, founded by Northwestern University classmates and friends in 1988, could and should be a crucial part of a vibrant Mag Mile future.
It’s been a tough few years, though, and “Villette” is a modest and uneven production that has its moments but doesn’t fully capture the vivacity and lyrical intensity of my favorite of Bronte’s novels, published six years after the far more famous “Jane Eyre.” By the time she got to “Villette,” which follows the fortunes of a young Englishwoman named Lucy Snowe who heads to the titular French town to teach in a boarding school, the eldest Bronte sister had managed astounding feats of stream-of-conscious writing, filled with powerful, subversive images as psychologically astute as they were entertainingly gothic. In “Villette,” Lucy Snowe, who is not necessarily the most reliable of narrators, falls in love with an unattainable man and has what now would be described as issues of mental health. But she hangs in there in what is to her a foreign environment and succeeds spectacularly well.
Lucy is far more reticent towards, and critical of, her audience in Gmitter’s adaptation than is the case with the reader on the page. That’s probably because Gmitter wants to imbue her with an edgier, more contemporary sensibility and also because issues of romance and intimacy are just so fraught these days in the theater. Not so for Bronte, or the Brontes plural, I’d argue, being as the sisters lived vivid, passionate lives on the page, allowing them to journey far beyond their famous Yorkshire parsonage.
If there’s one thing I’d suggest for this work in progress, it would be more warmth, narrative kindness and a closer relationship with the people in the seats, the theater’s equivalent of the adoring Bronte reader.
In some ways, director Tracy Walsh’s production is a deconstruction of “Villette,” a piece of theater that certainly finds the humor in the piece and is appreciative of the wry sensibility. The intent here, I think, is to universalize the story and not worry unduly about the original cultural specifics. The cast, which includes Mi Kang (who plays Lucy), Helen Joo Lee, Mo Shipley, Debo Balogun, Renée Lockett and Ronald Román-Mele’ndez are all vibrant performers who maintain their own identities rather than disappearing into their Victorian characters. That’s fair enough although a tricky match in places for this particular Bronte, who was so profoundly empathetic.
No one here feels especially vulnerable to anything. So, in essence, the show concentrates on a structural critique of the situation in which Lucy finds herself and a celebration of her personal resilience. I found myself craving fewer, longer scenes, allowing the actors to dive deeper without being so interrupted by the sliding doors on Yu Shibagaki’s set, more elegant than functional. But Bronte fans will find plenty here to intrigue them.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Villette” (2.5 stars)
When: Through April 23
Where: Lookingglass Theatre in the Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Tickets: $65-$75 at 312-337-0665 and lookingglasstheatre.org
